Marvel Discovery, a TSX-listed mining company, has agreed to acquire the Costigan Lake uranium project in Athabasca Basin, Canada, for C$1m ($733,703).
Occupying 5,518 hectares (ha) of land, the Costigan Lake project is located on the eastern side of the basin and is similar to some of the largest uranium mines such as Key Lake, Cigar Lake and McArthur River.
It is located on the Wollaston-Mudjactic Transition Zone (WMTZ), the same basement rocks on which several uranium deposits are located on the east side of the basin.
The project is situated 25km from Cameco’s Key Lake Mine, and is next to F3 Uranium’s Hobo project and Abasca Resources’ Key Lake South project, which recently completed a 4,959m drill programme.
The acquisition expands the footprint of Marvel Discovery to four projects covering 23,130ha of land and is in line with its approach to project generation and exploration.
Marvel claims to be using the same technologies that helped in discovering other projects in the basin, including radon surveys, ground geophysics, underwater spectrometer analysis and airborne radiometric surveys.
Additional targets at the project include anomalous radioactive boulder trains that were first discovered by Rainbow Oil in 1978.
Marvel has agreed to pay the seller C$1m as consideration for the project and spend C$2m in exploration expenditure in five years.
Additionally, it has an option to buy back 1% of a net smelter royalty by paying C$1.5m.
Marvel CEO Karim Rayani said: “Marvel has completed an almost impossible task of acquiring key ground in the prolific Key Lake Corridor. The addition of the Costigan Lake Property is within the WMTZ and the Key Lake Shear Zone, which represents tremendous opportunity.
“We are active in the richest uranium belt in the Basin and on trend with world-class discoveries. Marvel’s approach is nothing short of Marvelous: going after multi commodity, large-scale projects that mimic the success of basement-hosted uranium deposits found on the western side of the Athabasca Basin, such as NexGen Energy’s Arrow Deposit.
“We look forward to a very busy winter season of exploration in the Basin.”
